NRC continues sitting at Oguaa

Cape Coast, Mar.1, GNA- Mr Anthony Kofi Asante, a former district organiser for the defunct Young Pioneer Movement (YPM) for Juabeso- Bia in the Western region told the NRC sitting at Cape Coast that he lost two teeth through beatings he received from soldiers immediately after the military take-over of Nkrumah's government in 1966.

Mr Asante, who is now 81, said soldiers arrested him and after subjecting him to severe beatings, through which he lost the teeth, took him to the Sekondi central prison where he was detained for quite a long time.

He said his Estate Vanguard car with registration number, AD 44 which he had bought while working as a timber contractor at Sefwi Afari, before joining the YPM, and a motor-bike he also bought and paid for by instalments while with the Young Pioneers were seized by the soldiers and have not been returned to him.

He said three months after his release from prison, following the abortive coup of 1967 in which Lt. Gen. E. K. Kotoka was killed, he was arrested again on charges that he had jubilated over Kotoka's death, and he was again brutally assaulted by the soldiers who came for him, and taken back to the Sekondi central prison where he spent six months. He said he has kept the teeth to date to show as evidence of the torture he went through the hands of soldiers and also as a "warning to his children to keep away from active politics".

Mr Asante appealed to the NRC to assist him get some form of compensation for what he had lost and the brutalities he suffered at the hands of the soldiers, which had turned him into a "sick man" and could not do anything to earn a living.

Mr Johnson Kofi Frimpong, a farmer, 75, said three months after the June 4, 1979, he and his two younger brothers, Kofi Mensah and Kwabena Mesu were arrested by soldiers at Mradan near Dunkwa-on Offin on charges that they had sold a piece of land belonging to one Arthur also of the same village.

He stated that they were beaten severely and blood started oozing from his nose and when the soldiers put them in their vehicle to take them to Dunkwa, one of his brothers working with the Survey department at the time intervened, because of his condition and he was released, but Mensah and Mesu were taken away.

Mr Frimpong said his two brothers were taken to Dunkwa and subjected to severe beatings and on their release, Mesu died six months afterwards.

He said the allegation later turned out to be false as their accuser rather the land to three people, which sparked off litigation.

"I wanted to report the matter to the Omanhene Denkyira but I was prevailed upon to forget it", he said.

Mr Ibrahim Owusu Peprah, 49, a goldsmith at Dunkwa also said soldiers came to arrest his father, Abubakar Owusu Peprah, also a goldsmith but now deceased and when they did not get him, he was arrested and beaten mercilessly.

Peprah said they accused his father of dealing in mercury but when a search was conducted in his room no mercury was found, and jewellery worth about 300,000 cedis at that time, was taken away by the soldiers. He said the soldiers took him to a 'dredge bungalow' at Obuasi and while on the way, they beat him and sustained cuts on his body. Maulvi A. Wahab Adam and Uborr Dalafu Labal II both commissioners of the NRC inspected the scars on his back and shoulders. Other petitioners were Madam Dinah Owusu, 47 a farmer from Dunkwa-Atakyem, Mr Awuku Oteng, Mr Kofi Oware and Mr Musa Kramo.